


from eden

by Verbyna



Series: rifle, scissor, stone [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Blood and Gore, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, my suite in hell is the party room and y'all are invited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-18 05:44:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10610490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verbyna/pseuds/Verbyna
Summary: The church will make for a beautiful crime scene, Kent thinks.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jedusaur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedusaur/gifts).



> me: what next? not the one that i can't write during easter week  
> jedusaur: OH MAN THAT ONE  
> me: [waves goodbye to own immortal soul]
> 
> as always, talk to me on tumblr @soundslikepenance, which is extra appropriate after posting this while clutching my rosary

The church will make for a beautiful crime scene, Kent thinks. Just the right amount of wrong to offset the colors - red blood on pale marble, or the spill of the priest’s black coat against the big crucifix at the other end. 

He watches Jack’s progression along the stations of the cross on his phone. Kent’s camped outside, next to the priest’s car. He’s been there for hours, waiting for Jack; he wasn’t sure if tonight is the night, and honestly he still doesn’t know if Jack’s on the clock or just here to crawl down memory lane.

Jack does love to beg for absolution.

It’s not a shock when Jack sits in a pew right near the front. They used to do this - when they were fifteen, sixteen, and Kent was freshly claimed by the Zimmermanns, Bob and Alicia would take them to Mass. Kent would wear the clothes Jack picked for him and Jack would be in one of his suits, big blue eyes and twitchy fingers, pressed against Kent from shoulder to ankle on one side.

Jack bows his head. Caught in the memory, Kent bows his as well, setting the phone against the bumper on the priest’s car. Did they pray? Kent knows that his mouth formed the words, because George had already drilled into him the importance of blending in. _Pray for us sinners._ He could certainly use some intercession, not that it would help. They stopped being salvageable the moment they met, because Kent’s knees started to buckle as soon as he was drawn into Jack’s orbit, under Jack’s wing.

It still comes as a shock when Jack kneels in the pew.

It’s always a shock when Jack shows weakness, because even under Kent’s drugs and Kent’s pliers, even when the only words he has left are _Forgive me,_ they only sound like _do your worst._

Jack knows what he deserves. He knows what he did.

 

+

 

It takes a while for the priest to notice Jack. They exchange some words, Jack with his pleading face turned up and the priest blankly kind, before the priest smiles and tilts his head toward the confessional.

Kent’s brain throws up the term “Schrodinger’s confessional” and he giggles to himself uneasily. If Jack truly confesses, Jack will have to kill the priest tonight. And then Kent will have to go on to his next job, a real job, instead of wasting time watching Jack’s ongoing murder roadtrip. But if he only confessed the little things, if he’s playing with his food and the priest walks out, he’ll know more about Kent than any man of God should, because he’s the stain on Jack, no matter the size.

It’s a long hour before Jack walks out, opens the door for the priest’s side of the confessional, and fires six muffled bullets. Kent can’t see Jack’s face from this angle, but he knows the determined set to his shoulders, his jaw.

This must look like hate. This must look random, and brutal, so Jack pulls a knife from his coat and steps out of frame and into the confessional. He comes out a minute later, but Kent can’t tell if any of the blood got on him until he walks past Kent’s little sidewalk nest and Kent can see the darker blotches on the dark wool coat.

For a couple of seconds, Kent considers grabbing Jack for one of their talks. But no, now is not the time. Jack is all talked out. He’d take whatever Kent dished without complaint and he wouldn’t say _love,_ he wouldn’t say _us._

It’s so hard, is the thing. It’s so hard having Jack in the world, Jack on the same street, without taking him. Making him hurt, making him pay.

Kent listens to the sound of Jack’s soles against pavement until it fades into distant traffic.

 

+

 

No one will come in for another three hours. Kent knows the rhythm of a Catholic church, as does Jack, and they both did a lot of recon on the mark by now, besides. He walks in, hands in his hoodie pouch under his jacket, and takes a good look around.

The quiet aftermath of Jack’s violence is very familiar. It’s easy to look at the ceiling, so far away this time, and breathe in the iron-smell of his kills. Gunpowder, dust, drying blood: the trinity that holds Kent in the light, as much as he’d want to fade into screams and the warm comfort of other people’s fear. Jack is the monster under the bed, but Kent is--

He looks up at the crucifix and down at the confessional. There’s no blood pooling under the door, yet. There is nothing here but Kent; no one to judge, no one to help him, not one hint of salvation.

He wonders if that makes him God for a little while. He knows as much about Jack as God does, but perhaps his fall from grace makes him the devil instead. It’s an oddly comforting thought: Jack’s clean kills and burning buildings against Kent’s slow, careful dismantling of people from the soul out, from the extremities in, chitin to the exposed skeleton of teeth to the hidden heart left of center.

When he walks into the confessional and sits down, it smells like home.

 

+

 

It’s not an actual choice to start confessing, but it’s easy once he starts.

“I loved him first. Did he tell you that? I suppose he wouldn’t.” He scratches idly at his thigh and leans forward on his elbows. “I’m not going to ask for forgiveness for it. I didn’t choose it. And I’ve been paying for it.

“This,” he says, “you. I would’ve probably killed you tonight if he hadn’t. I’ve been thinking about it this week. Kneeling in that pew and saying I’ve sinned, telling you everything, squeezing the life out of you before he can.” He wrinkles his nose. “Maybe not as bloody.”

It really does reek. Kent doesn’t mind his own messes, and he doesn’t mind Jack’s, but this is a bit self-indulgent, even for him.

He huffs at the wooden ceiling of the box and pulls his legs up. “I have to go get some info from a CEO. It’s all the way in Georgia. Jack’s going to DC. Did he tell you? Probably not. He’s going to DC to take out some intern. He’s meeting his new boy in ten hours.

“I can’t believe he found someone more fucked up than I was. Like, before. I went to his Ma’s house and found this old tape, like a VHS tape? And he was like, three, and he pulled that trigger and knocked himself on his ass. All his dad’s friends were laughing, baby boy was crying, all deaf and shit, but he hit it dead center.”

He checks the time on his phone, and the outside surveillance if he’s at it. All quiet and peaceful. He can barely smell the corpse now, but his legs are getting numb, so he slides to the floor and folds his feet up so he won’t get a cramp all curled up on the seat.

“If I close my eyes right now I can picture him right against me. Sorry, I guess. But I do.” He closes his eyes and hums happily. “It’s last year, right? He’s in my bed, and he’s so out of it. I must’ve tied him too tight. He runs hot, he’s all hot against my legs, I’ve got my legs on top of him. He’s not saying he’s sorry, but I know he is. Like,” he laughs, eyes closed, “if I clenched my fist right now I’d feel his hair in it. I won’t, church and all, but.” He opens his eyes and looks at the blood-spattered partition. “It takes a lot to get to him. It’s so much _work._ But he thanks me for it.”

He gets up and stretches as best he can in the confined space. Maybe he should check the staging for the body, but Jack’s always done okay for that. He has to confirm his next job before he heads to the airport, or his alias won’t be on the flight list.

“I think maybe that’s why he killed you tonight. He told you he thanks me. He remembers that part. Oh well. He’s my boy, but Lord help him.”

It takes a couple of minutes to check the booth for DNA and switch off his surveillance, then five minutes to remove the camera and sweep the pew where Jack kneeled for fiber. Call him paranoid, but Kent won’t be stupid if he can help it. There’s no cleanup crew behind him, and no one to clean up after Jack here.

He crosses himself before walking out into the street. 4am, no birds yet, but someone bumps into him and it instantly feels like home. New York boy, through and through.

He shoots off a text and gets in the car. He’ll be at the airport soon. He wonders if Jack’s already up in the air, wondering where Kent is - if he’s any of the tiny lights across the midwest, or just thinking about Jack, beyond the curve of the horizon. If he lets himself think about Kent at all.


End file.
